Kefit's Master Ninja Mode notes (GAME COMPLETE!)

[Kefit]

I have begun my descent into hell.

Anyone who has talked with me recently knows that the only video game I have played in the last few month is Ninja Gaiden Black. It is quite possibly one of the greatest games ever created.

Last night I unlocked Master Ninja mode after finally beating Very Hard, and I jumped straight into it. I have decided that I will keep notes on the experience, so here they are:

Chapter 1.

Oh my god what the fuck. Having every ninja replaced with a windmill shuriken ninja on Very Hard was fine, since they died to one XYXY combo. But now almost every ninja has been replaced with a red ninja, who require a Fiend Sealer upon finishing the XYXY combo to kill. Too bad you are usually being spammed by attacks from three at a time, making this Fiend Sealer nearly impossible to get off. I have enough skill at this game to last against these guys for a while, but it is a war of attrition that I ultimately can't win - the slightest mistake results in at least a third of my health bar dissappearing. If these guys died faster (say, to one XYXY combo) I would stand a chance, but as it is they just plain take far too long to kill. The furthest I got fighting traditionally was the hallway (the third encounter inside the fortress), and that only happened once.

I had read about people using the nunchakus and the lunar on this level, so I gave those a try. Unfortunately, I have never used the nachakus before. And I reserve the lunar for special purposes, like scythe demons and for when I need a long range attack on a boss; in other words, I have little experience going into direct melee with multiple enemies using it. Such combat is what I have spent the last 60 or so hours of Ninja Gaiden gameplay honing with the Dragon Sword.

That is when I decided to throw off all of the cheapness gloves I had been restraining myself with in the past. You see, Ninja Gaiden isn't a particularly difficult game on lower difficulty levels if you figure out ways to be really cheap. I discovered these tactics fairly early on in my playing, but I forced myself not use them, as they make the game a lot less fun. Furthermore, they do nothing to improve one's skill, so I knew that if I used the cheap tactics I would have absolutely no chance on higher difficulties.

But I was now on Master Ninja. There are no higher difficulties levels. Thus, all bets are off. I took my trusty dragon sword, and fought my way to the second encounter in the fortress like normal. Then I proceeded to spam Diving Cicada slash (a powerful attack executed after wall jumping that provides significant invincibility frames) until an enemy died and released essence. I would then perform an on landing ultimate tech, usually killing a couple more ninjas, releasing their essence, which I would use for an UT against the next ninjas to appear. I continued chaining essence like this as long as I could, returning to wall attack spam if I got in trouble. I repeated this process in the next two rooms (although I died several times too - this method is cheap, but it isn't easy or risk free), and I suddenly found myself at the first save point in the game. Getting this far had taken me roughly three hours.

The only other notable part of chapter one was Murai. It took a while for my battle plan against him to fully develop, but I found a very slow paced, defensive strategy to be the trick. I equiped the Lunar, and kept my distance from Murai himself. I used XY and wall attacks to poke his red ninja minions from a distance, until I had disposed of both of them. When they were dead, I used carefully placed rolls and XY combos to poke Murai's health down low enough to make more ninjas spawn. I then retreated to take care of them. This process repeated several times. This was all a lot more difficult than it sounds, since the red ninjas dodge just about everything. Furthermore, Murai's Auspicious Phoenix x3 was nearly impossible to dodge completely unless I was near a wall to run along. It took numerous tries, but I did eventually get through this battle with minimal potion use.

Chapter 2:

Absolute cake compared to chapter one. The samurai block just about everything, and they seem to have more health than some bosses on the lower difficulties, but none of that mattered, since they never could hit me. All I had to do was spam XYY to break their guard, another XYY to ground them, and then fiend seal them once or twice. The tricky part was manipulating the camera to keep the mages off screen. Although I found that I could roll straight through their projectile volley on Very Hard, they now fire so many that doing so is not possible. Roll jump dodging was the only chance I had to get away from the volley, but the timing had to be pretty much perfect for it to work. I had a lot of practice manipulating the camera against the berserkers in the Core and the Stadium challenge on VH though, so this wasn't too difficult.

The archer horseman seemed to fire arrows at a far greater frequency than on lower difficulty levels. Furthermore, the horses had a ridiculous amount of health. Thus, the battle against the horsemen proceeded at a very slow pace, although it was neither particularly difficult or interesting.

Masakado, as always, was a push over. Just hide in a corner, kill the mages, fire arrows, and repeat. The battle becomes far more interesting when he falls off his horse, at which point I had to go super aggressive on the mages, since I could no longer hide from Masakado in the corner (its funny how he gains a guard breaking move that he can follow up only after being dismounted).

Chapter 3:

Again, more cake. I had my way with the SAT soldiers in this level. The black soldiers were similar in guarding and health to the samurai from chapter two, and were disposed of in the same way. Except this time I had no mages to worry about. Absolutely nothing provided me a challenge, especially after I got my Dragon Sword upgraded to level two and got the Izuna Drop.

Until Dynamo, that is. His minions make it absolutely impossible to dodge his laser blasts at a distance, and thus it is absolutely impossible to actually kill his minions without getting hit yourself. The answer? Ignore his minions, and play an extremely aggresive close game with Dynamo, rolling through his arm swing -> grab combo and then XYYing him for a good chunck of health. Of course, getting Dynamo into this trap is far trickier than it sounds, since he has a tendency to blast you at close range with a laser if you get too close. Still, nothing too bad. I will note that I enjoyed this battle a lot more on Very Hard, since one of his minions was a white soldier then, allowinging for UT the black soldier, which ultimately let me fight a proper battle with the boss himself.

Chapter 4:

It took me a couple of deaths to fully remember the attack arsenal of the MSAT soldiers. After that they couldn't touch me. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble on VH, since I was not used to the grenade launching MSATs. However, I was fully aware of their presence this time around, and took care of them appropriately (Flying Swallow --> Izuna Drop).

The red ninjas that attack on top the building, who killed me countless times on VH, were an absolute joke this time around. It is funny how much of a difference the Izuna Drop makes when fighting these guys - if I had had the Izuna Drop in chapter one then I would not have had nearly as much trouble there.

Chapter 5:

More MSATs. Snore. More red ninjas. Had to be careful with those, as they are still fully capable of killing me in a couple of attacks if I slip up. Black MSAT, grenade launcher MSAT and red ninja at the same time. Intersting. Ninja Gaiden had never mixed enemy types like this on earlier difficulties. Still nothing too hard, as long as I was sure to flying swallow the grenade launcher MSAT immediately.

Four red ninjas at once. Fairly tricky, but nothing too bad. More red ninjas. White MSATS (aka cannon fodder aka dino food). Galas (red dinosaur fiend) time. Blade of Nittrii did the trick, although they now have an obscene amount of health. Too bad they can't hit me anymore, since I have spent the last three runs through the game fighting them.

Tentacle monster fight! This guy was always easy before, so I expected nothing different this time. Then I saw that his minions were shadow imps. FUCK. I got as far away from him as possible, and concentrated entirely on disposing of the imps - a small slipup against them would result in over half my health dissappearing to their slide tackle --> stab combo. Once they were gone I concentrated on nailing the tentacles. Like most of the other bosses thus far, this battle became much slower paced than it was in the past. I now had to actually concentrate on not getting hit by the arms, and killing the arms took forever compared to the past. Still, a few potions later I emerged victorious.

Chapter 6:

Greater cat fiends right off the bat. Interesting. These guys dodge EVERYTHING now, although I need to do is hit them with one X attack, which pretty much guaruntees an Izuna Drop, which is insta death for them. However, they drop health so often that fighting a neverending stream of them isn't too particularly difficult.

True Dragon Sword Fiend Ryu seemed much easier than on VH, although I am probably just a lot better now. Four IDs later and he was dead. I collected my rewards in the globe room, and saved my game, done for the night.

Next time I play I will likely do the Archive fiend challenge (oh god I am already in tears from how hard I know this will be), the Bone Dragon, the Ritual Room fiend challenge (easy as cake), and Alma. Should be fun.

Man, this is fun. So very hard, but so very fun.